


I have kept my feelings to myself (I could find no language to describe them in)

by theappleppielifestyle



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 06:06:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11202018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theappleppielifestyle/pseuds/theappleppielifestyle
Summary: It’s not like Steve is starting from scratch, but nowadays Steve watches Tony almost like he’s studying him, like Tony is one of the paintings he had to write about in art school and Steve is trying to see past the paint.(Or, Steve and Tony find better ways to communicate.)





	I have kept my feelings to myself (I could find no language to describe them in)

“Having trouble drawing him again?”

Steve manages to keep himself from startling- Natasha had sat down next to him on the couch without him noticing. It should be impossible with Steve’s superhearing, but it can happen when Steve’s not paying attention or Natasha falls into the familiar habit of moving unheard.

Steve looks over at her. “You see a sketchpad?”

“Artists can study their subjects without one,” Natasha says. Her mouth curls. “You looked like you were studying him.”

It’s a fair assessment. Tony is standing over at the table in the kitchen, which Steve can see if he cranes his head slightly. He’s having a conversation with someone- Bruce, going by the hand movements Tony is executing. That and his body language, which is getting the kind of fast and focused that only occurs in fights or scientific discussions.

“I suppose I was. Not to draw him- though I still can’t get him right,” Steve admits. He folds his hands together in his lap and looks at them as an excuse not to meet Natasha’s eyes. “I was trying to figure him out, I guess.”

“Anything in particular, or-”

“No,” Steve says, and judging by her smile he assumes she knew before she asked. “Just- Tony. In general.”

Natasha hums. Her head turns and Steve imagines the jean-clad cut of Tony’s hip against the table, the spread of his fingers as he waves a hand.

“Not an easy task,” Natasha allows. She looks away and settles into the couch, pulling her socked feet up to rest near her thighs. “I found myself having to correct myself on several different counts after my initial assessment when I was Natalie Rushman. He managed to surprise me for much longer than most people do.”

“He doesn’t surprise you now?”

She shakes her head. “His character doesn’t. His actions…”

She trails off, eyebrows ticking upwards and Steve has to huff a laugh. She eyes him before continuing, “You’ll get there eventually. You two just… have some communication problems. Not to mention your personalities, your backgrounds-”

She pauses when he fixes her with a look. “You have very different methods of doing almost everything,” she says, in a tone that makes Steve think she could write an essay on the subject. “Not to mention the differences in how you talk, how you show affection- how you compliment people, the words you use, your body language- how you communicate on most levels. Remember those first few weeks when you said something and Tony took it completely differently, then you’d get burned up over something he said and for a second Tony would just look confused before snapping his fighting face on?”

Steve sighs. “All too well, Nat.”

“Well.” She tucks a hand under her socked feet. “You’ve both come far since then. All you need is to keep going down that road.”

“Yeah? How long do you reckon that will take?”

She hums again. “It’s taken you a year to get this far. So...” She pretends to consider. “Another ten, maybe.”

“Oh, ten years?”

“Mm-hm. Just an estimate.”

“Just a decade,” Steve mutters. He lets his head fall back against the couch and eyes the ceiling. From the kitchen, Tony’s voice tapers off into a laugh and Steve twists just in time to catch his laugh-lines creasing.

Natasha’s words loop in his head- _you show affection differently, you talk and compliment and communicate in different ways_. Steve had grown to recognize the complicated tangle of wires that was talking with Tony Stark, his odd mannerisms and his motor-mouth and his tendency to do things that seem strange to anyone else and treat them as ordinary.

That wasn’t even touching on affection, Jesus- giving and receiving, Steve had slowly learned that it was, if possible, an even more dangerous minefield. When it came to affection, Tony was confusing and seemed confused in turn.

“With some people, it’s like learning a language.”

Steve doesn’t bother trying not to startle. “What?”

Natasha nods towards Tony. “Knowing people. Getting to know them on a deeper level. With some of them, it’s like learning a new language.”

Steve wets his lips. In the next room, Tony laughs again. His face tips upwards and Steve watches the line of his throat.

“That sounds about right,” Steve says.

 

 

 

Steve has been living with Tony for a year and working with him for slightly longer. He’s been friends with Tony for about eight months, and close with him for around five of those months. It’s not like Steve is starting from scratch, but nowadays Steve watches Tony almost like he’s studying him, like Tony is one of the paintings he had to write about in art school and Steve is trying to see past the paint.

Translating Tony Stark turns out to be just as hard. Or, more accurately- translating it correctly is hard, and figuring out how to respond in a way that Tony will interpret in the way Steve wants him to is close to impossible.

When they’d first become friends and Steve had tried resorting to his usual kind of affection he used with friends- casual touches, shoulder squeezes and the like- Tony had just seemed bewildered. He’d hid it fast and hid it well, but Steve had caught onto it and dialled it back.

He’d cottoned onto Tony’s preferred method of affection pretty fast: Tony builds them armour, gadgets; he buys Steve an art studio and tries to make Steve’s favourite baseball team move back to Brooklyn before Steve talks him out of it, then Tony gets frustrated or flustered when people turn his offers down or, interestingly, when people thank him genuinely. It’s like he wants- or expects- people to take it for granted and move on, and like hell if Steve is going to do that, even if it makes Tony uncomfortable.

Tony gives compliments, but 90% of the time they’re backhanded. It’s like he’s scared to come out and say it, like he wants to be kind but feels pressured to throw a bite of something in there even if he means none of it.

Touch doesn’t come into the equation very much, affection-wise or communication-wise. Steve isn’t too sure why that is.

Over the next week, Steve pays attention more than he has since he started becoming friends with Tony and was desperate to figure out just what the hell this guy was about. When he heads down to Tony’s workshop to sit on the couch and draw, he keeps an eye on Tony as he interacts with his bots.

Like most of Tony’s relationships, the one with his bots had baffled Steve at first. Tony both talked to them like they were annoying children, but he also maintained them and gave them nicknames and smiled fondly at them when he thought Steve wasn’t looking. This had been back when Steve hadn’t grasped fully that what Tony said and what he meant were two very different things.

Nowadays, Steve watches Tony talk to his bots and has to hide his own smile. As Tony has grown more comfortable around Steve- it took five months for Steve to even be let in to the workshop, let alone stay there for more than a few minutes- he’s started showing a different side to the bots. It’s nothing of the love that Steve knows he must feel for them- instead it’s an absentminded _good boy_ or a conversation that Tony keeps up even though the bots can only beep at him. Sometimes Tony will stroke a hand down Dummy’s supporting strut, but other than that he only touches them when they’re handing him something.

Tony touches Pepper just as much, which is to say hardly ever. They’re still close- despite having broken up over a year ago they’ve maintained their friendship, and they share each other’s space more often than not when they’re around each other in private. Still, most of the touches are initiated by Pepper: a hand on his wrist to get his attention, fingers brushing his arm, sometimes pushing hair behind his ear before press conferences. There’s the very occasional kiss on his cheek.

Steve’s not sure how many times he’s seen Tony touch her in return, but there must be several, surely. He thinks back on it and can only bring up a breakfast when Tony had passed her and poked her briefly in the shoulder as he was teasing her about something Steve can no longer remember.

 

 

 

By the time Steve gets a chance to examine Tony with his oldest friend, he’s more aware that he’s categorizing Tony’s reaction to touch: how he doles it out, why he does or doesn’t do it; how this changes depending on the person or situation.

Rhodey is one of the only people who Tony initiates physical intimacy with: he walks right up and hugs him when he spots him coming through the living room door. Rhodey’s arms wrap easily around him and they share a tight, bracing hug that lasts for a good few seconds before they draw back.

Steve eyes them. Tony’s hand stays on Rhodey’s shoulder and Rhodey’s hand is still on Tony’s arm just above his elbow; they stay like this until they get to the couch and have to sit down.

_He’s uncomfortable with people touching him unless he trusts them_ , Steve thinks. It’s simple and solid and Steve mentally kicks himself for not being able to put it into words sooner.

He turns his gaze to the screen. They’re watching The Wizard of Oz for the second time in a month due to Clint’s insistence, and Steve watches the black and white on screen and tries to put Tony out of his mind.

It works and it doesn’t. Steve finds his mind drifting back to the first few months out of the ice- the only people who touched him had been SHIELD agents and people punching Captain America. He hadn’t noticed how much he’d missed being touched- friendly touches, nothing touches from people who cared about him as a person- until he’d found the Avengers and they started to form their family unit.

Doesn’t Tony miss those touches? If he trusts the Avengers- and Steve is almost positive he does, with a year’s worth of material to back him- then why doesn’t he initiate more of the intimacy he has to be craving? Even if he’s uncomfortable, he has to need it; Steve hasn’t known anyone who doesn’t.

The movie continues into technicolour, but Steve’s mind wanders to wire mothers: those wretched experiments done on baby monkeys that set them up with a wire ‘mother’ monkey who held food, then a cloth ‘mother’ who held nothing. Overwhelmingly, the monkeys had gone to the cloth mother and clung.

When Tony gets up for more popcorn, Steve finds himself getting to his feet on autopilot.

“I don’t know if we’re making so much it’ll take two of us to carry it,” Tony says when Steve falls into step beside him.

Steve shrugs. “We need more snacks anyway.”

“If you say so. You are a growing supersolider.”

Steve makes a noise in the back of his throat. It’s not quite a laugh.

When they make it into the kitchen, Steve starts going through the fridge as Tony gets popcorn out of the cupboard and places it in the microwave.

“Get the Chunky Monkey,” Tony tells him as Steve crouches in front of the freezer. “Don’t let Natasha tell you I never did her anything.”

Steve pushes thoughts of wire mothers from his head. “I’m sure she’ll be eternally grateful,” he says. He has to squint to find the right ice cream, and then he’s extricating it from the depths of the freezer to pile it along with everything else in his arms.

When he turns around, Tony is leaning on the counter with his arms crossed, body tilted towards the microwave but face tilted towards Steve. He’s grinning, eyebrows raised. “Sure you got enough?”

“I’m a growing supersoldier,” Steve says in that dry voice that used to make Tony burst into surprised laughter. Now it just makes Tony grin wider.

“Try to spare some for the rest of us, Cap.”

“You got it,” Steve says. As he passes, he knocks his shoulder gently with Tony’s. He catches a glimpse of Tony’s face- puzzled, but not overly so, just more of Steve being his usual strange self. At least Steve isn’t alone in his mutual confusion.

_Yet another of our talks lost in translation_ , Steve thinks as he heads back into the lounge. He wonders if they’ll ever be able to talk plainly to each other and not have it twisted up by the other’s head, then he wonders what he meant by brushing Tony’s shoulder. He’s not altogether sure- it wouldn’t be a word, exactly. It would be more of a general touch, the kind of nothing-bump he’d trade with Bucky all the time, the ones he gives Sam and sometimes Natasha: the notion of _I’m here with you_ , or maybe _I’m fond of you_ or _I’m enjoying this_ ; or all of them together in the rocking pressure of a shoulder bumping against someone else’s.

 

 

 

Later, he’ll realize that he goes to Bucky the next day to find someone with whom their shared language is familiar and comforting. As it’s happening, all he knows is he hasn’t seen Bucky in a few days and he declined their offer to come down to the movie night.

“We watched Wizard of Oz,” Steve tells him after Bucky lets him in.

Bucky grunts. He leads Steve into the kitchen and Steve is going to change the subject when Bucky says, “Isn’t that the one we snuck into? The one with the green-”

“The witch, yeah.” Steve can’t stop himself from grinning. He pockets his hands. “That’s the one.”

Bucky nods. He turns to rummage through the cabinets. “You got us kicked out five minutes before the ending, you punk.”

“Yeahhhh. Sorry about that.”

Bucky turns around with exasperated fondness. He chucks a bag of dried fruits onto the counter and peels it open with his metal hand. “Want some? We got all sorts.”

“Sure,” Steve says, and accepts what he thinks is apricot. “Been having all sorts of fun with the dehydrator Sam got you, huh?”

Bucky slots several bits of dried fruit into his mouth at once. “Don’t tell him,” he says, chewing.

“Cross my heart,” Steve says. He takes a bite from his fruit. Definitely apricot.

They settle into comfortable silence, both of them leaning on their elbows on the counter. Between the two of them they make their way through the bag of dehydrated fruit, until Bucky reaches for the last one and Steve swats him away with a grin.

“Hey.”

“My fucking fruit,” Bucky points out.

“Then you can make more,” Steve says, popping it into his mouth. Apricot again.

Bucky snorts. He leans back in his chair and says, “So.”

When he doesn’t continue, Steve says, “So?”

Bucky gestures towards him. “Gonna tell me about whatever’s going on in that head of yours?”

Steve considers. He wishes they had more to snack on so he could have something to do with his hands. “Not yet, I think.”

“Yuh-huh,” Bucky says. “Okay. What do you want to do, then?”

Steve breathes out heavily through his nose. “You could show me how to make dehydrated fruit.”

“Google it,” Bucky says. “Want to finish watching the _Fast and Furious_ movies?”

“You read my mind.”

They race each other to the elevator. Bucky elbows Steve in the side hard enough to bruise and Steve chokes on his laughter, feeling goofy and more childlike than he had since he was fifteen.

 

 

 

Five hours later finds them on the couch, Steve’s leg tangled absentmindedly in Bucky’s, their arms pressed together. A half-finished mud cake sits on the coffee table in front of them, being the first thing they found when opening the cupboard after finishing the first movie, which is by no means the first of the series.

“These are so goddamn dumb,” Bucky says.

Steve puts a hand on the side of his face, says “Shhh,” and then drops it. “Watch the car chases.”

Bucky is reaching for the mud cake when Tony walks in. Tony’s face flickers with several emotions as he takes in their positon; the mud cake; the movie.

“Okay,” is what Tony finally comes out with. Then: “Is that Sam’s mudcake? He was going to take that to his mother’s.”

“Not anymore he ain’t,” Bucky mutters, curling his metal arm around it.

Steve kicks him with the foot that isn’t lying underneath Bucky’s leg. He clips his own shin in the process. _Captain America, ladies and gentlemen_ , he thinks to himself as Bucky aims a kick back.

“We’ll buy him a new one before he leaves tomorrow,” Steve says.

“Should’ve left a note,” Bucky says, mouth open as he chews. “Doesn’t even _live_ here. Who leaves cake somewhere they don’t even-”

Ignoring him, Steve turns to Tony. “Want to join us?”

Tony blinks. Bucky probably blinks too, but Steve is focusing on Tony, whose eyes flicker between Steve, Bucky and the TV.

“Uh,” Tony says.

“We can budge over,” Steve says, and does just that. Trying to sound casual, he continues, “We’re a few movies in, but it’s not hard to catch up. You can point out the scientific inaccuracies. There are a _lot_.”

Tony’s mouth twitches. For a moment Steve thinks he’s going to bullshit an excuse, but then Tony is shucking his jacket and coming over to the couch. He tries to get as much space between him and Steve that he can get, but there isn’t much to spare.

Steve adjusts himself in the hope that he affords Tony more room, but all he does is get his hip pressing into Tony’s. It’s their only line of contact, and Steve hopes it doesn’t make Tony uncomfortable as he settles in, trying not to notice.

It takes Tony a good twenty minutes to relax. He does it in increments, and when he finally leans back into the couch Steve counts it as a victory. He doesn’t push the intimacy any further than it already is- he’d be more comfortable if he could sprawl; maybe lean against something. He doubt Tony would welcome it, so he turns to Bucky, who he’s been leaning on since he was six years old. Bucky takes the weight of Steve’s back on his shoulder without complaint and Steve rests his head against Bucky’s neck as the movie unfolds.

Tony watches this happen. Steve doesn’t look, but he can feel Tony’s gaze on him as it happens. Steve curls his knees in and keeps his feet just far enough away from Tony as not to touch him, but Tony’s shoulders are stiff again. Steve spares a second to think it over before he stretches his legs so his feet are pressed to the arm of the couch on the other side of Tony.

“Is this okay,” Steve asks.

Tony doesn’t look at him as he says, “Hmm? Sure.”

One thing Steve had been surprised to find about Tony: he can’t lie for shit. He can distract people until the cows come home, but that’s it. As the movie continues, Steve catches Tony glance over at him no fewer than four times, each of them laced with something that hints confusion but never lands on it.

 

 

 

Days later, Steve is drawing and thinking absently about wire monkeys when Tony clears his throat.

Steve looks up. They’re in Steve’s art studio; Steve is sitting at his desk while Tony sits on a red and gold beanbag he brought in one day without asking. Steve thinks he got it custom made. It hasn’t been a bother so Steve has never moved it, and Tony comes to sit on it sometimes which makes it worthwhile.

“What,” Steve says. Tony has a peculiar face on. He’s pacing, which isn’t unusual though it can get distracting.

He stops pacing and turns to face the wall next to Steve, eyes on his tablet screen. “You’ve been weird lately. Around me.”

Damn. Steve wrestles his expression into innocence. “You want to elaborate?”

Tony shrugs. It’s jerky. He hasn’t looked up from his tablet. “You keep getting this- intense look, and it’s not a bedroom eyes look or a hate look, it’s, it’s like- me staring at an equation I’m seconds away from working out.”

“That’s-” _Pretty goddamn accurate_ , Steve thinks privately. Out loud, he continues, “I- well. I have been trying to… figure you out, you could call it.”

Tony’s gaze flickers from the tablet to him, then back to the tablet. Then he drops his arm so the tablet hangs at his side and turns his gaze on Steve fully. “Any reason why? I mean- we’ve known each other for a year, what’s with the sudden-”

“I don’t understand you.”

Tony’s throat works. “Okay? That’s- most people don’t.”

“I’m your friend, Tony.” Steve turns in his chair so his whole body is lined towards him.

“Okay,” Tony repeats, slow. “ _And_? I doubt Rhodey understands me half the time and he’s been my friend for half my life. More than, even.”

“I…” Steve wets his lips. “I got thinking about how confused we got with each other at the start, back when we’d get riled up when one of us said something and we took it in a completely different direction. That still happens sometimes, just not to that level, and I thought I could- we could get better.”

“At… communicating.”

“Yes,” Steve says, and when Tony looks at him dubiously: “We- the way we express things are fundamentally different, but we’ve mostly found a way to translate them. We’re getting better.”

Tony eyes him. His eyes are spectacularly dark in the studio light. “So you think we’re so bad at talking to each other we need your special attention?”

“No! I-” Steve sighs. “I want to know you better. To understand.”

It hangs in the air, unexpected.

Tony swallows again. “I’ve been told that’s hard to do,” he says, and Steve laughs.

“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly an open door either. To you, especially.”

“Mmm.” Tony crosses his arms, then unfolds them. His fingers drum in tight lines on his tablet. “So, you- all the- the things you’ve been doing. That’s to, what, figure me out?”

“What things have I been doing?” Steve thought it had just been the staring. Which, granted, must have been strange-

“The…” Tony’s jaw shifts side to side. For a second he looks almost sheepish before he shakes it back. “Uh, you’ve been touching me? Pointedly, though. Like, pointed… nevermind, I just heard myself say it, delete that-”

“I stopped it when we started to become friends because I thought you were uncomfortable with it but I’m trying to start again because it’s, uh, it’s how I- communicate?” Steve holds back a wince. He tries to think back to his therapy sessions, which he should probably still be in. “Because I’m also- trying to demonstrate to you, my-” _affection_ “-communication methods. So we can communicate more efficiently.” _Stop saying communicate_.

Tony stares. His mouth opens, then closes. “Did it ever occur to you to tell me this?”

Steve pauses. “…No? Not yet, anyway.”

“Great,” Tony says quietly, almost to himself. Then, louder: “So your method to understand m- to get us to communicate better was to try some methods and not tell me about them.”

Steve has recently heard of headdesking. He resists the urge to try it for the first time. “Apparently.”

“Right.”

“Some team leader,” Steve tries jokingly.

It doesn’t get a laugh. At most it gets the ghost of a smile, undercut by the weight of Tony’s inscrutable stare. He watches Steve like he’s equal parts puzzles and afraid.

“Your methods could be better,” Tony says eventually. “But- it’s a good idea, Steve. It could do us good to, uh.”

He clears his throat. His gaze drops to the tablet in his hands. “I don’t understand you either, is what I’m trying to say,” he admits. “I get that to a lot of people I must seem pretty alien, so that’s- but you’re a fucking anomaly to me, honestly. So. We have that in common.”

With that, he leaves. Steve stares at the door until he finds he’s zoned out and has instead been staring at the red and gold bean-bag for god knows how long.

 

 

 

  
  
“He said I was an anomaly,” Steve tells Natasha when they’re half an hour into yoga and it’s doing nothing to distract him.

Natasha doesn’t pull out of her truly impressive position, which involves but isn’t limited to a handstand. “Context?”

Steve tells her. She glides smoothly out of her handstand onto the floor, where she leans into a stretch. As Steve mimics her in leaning over to follow the line of his leg, Natasha says, “You shouldn’t exist.”

Steve thinks to the super soldier serum; doctors before this telling him he’d be lucky to live to twenty; opening his eyes after coming out of the ice. “How so?”

Natasha’s arm curves over her head in a perfect line with her stretched leg. “In his world, people are full of hidden motives and always have an end game to use him for. He’s never met anyone like you. You’re genuine in a way he doesn’t know what to do with.”

Steve lets muscle memory tug him through the next few stretches. He hadn’t considered it like that, even during the multiple galas when Tony was flitting around like a hummingbird and laughing at things he didn’t find funny and Steve looked around at everyone doing the same; all those people putting up masks in those expensive suits and dresses.

As they’re in the middle of their cooldown stretches, Natasha clears her throat softly. “People generally give affection the way they received it as children,” she says. “Anything else is harder to learn.”

Steve’s eyes sweep shut. He’s picked up glimpses of what Tony’s childhood must’ve been like from photos and the very occasional comment from Tony or others. He’s usually shied away from thinking about it too much, as it feels too personal- every teammate, sans Thor, has a past Steve is sure they don’t want people to consider too hard.

Still, Natasha’s statement has him imagining Tony as a child, the Tony from those faded photos in the 70s: all big eyes and a mind too big for his body, Tony who would grow into a man who must want intimacy, must want affection, but is bewildered and confused by both when confronted with it. Tony who learned a model of affection based on gift-giving and then waving it off; who waves off any kind of affection right after he performs it like he’s afraid to get mocked or rejected. Tony who doesn’t initiate touch because- what? He never received it? Maybe he tried to initiate it, like any child would, and got rebuffed enough times that it got engrained into him not to try?

Natasha is focusing on her stretches in a way that suggests she’s not making eye contact with Steve so he can have time alone in his head to work through it.

He eyes her and wonders if this is how she and Clint got started: they both see people so deeply and then pretend they don’t until the material becomes useful.

“Thanks,” Steve says.

She nods, but doesn’t reply. Her lips are pursed.

_Use it well_ \- she doesn’t say it, but Steve hears it anyway.

He reaches over and squeezes her shoulder, and that gets her mouth twitching up into a smile. She lays her hand on his and squeezes back. Natasha had learned his language of affection with the wary practice of someone who’d spent a lifetime picking up other people’s habits.

 

 

 

 

As the week passes, Steve starts to notice Tony paying more attention than usual. Which is only fair, he supposes, if Steve had been doing the same for the last few weeks.

When Tony tries to mimic him- a brief shoulder touch as a thanks for getting him coffee- Steve can’t supress a smile. He butts their shoulders together and Tony rocks with it, good natured in the way a person might feel in the depths of a foreign culture they don’t completely understand.

He brings it up one afternoon when Steve is close to giving up on his latest project in frustration- Tony offered to pose for him, and has been sitting in a chair tapping at his tablet (“You don’t have to keep still,” Steve had told him ten minutes in, and Tony had said “Oh thank fuck” and brought out his tablet before Steve’s mouth closed) for an hour.

Steve, as usual, can’t get Tony’s face right. It feels like his teenage years when he had potential but not much else, and the things his hands produced were pathetic compared to the things he conjured in his head.

_Have an easier face, goddamnit_ , Steve doesn’t say. He scrubs out the line of Tony’s cheek. It doesn’t seem half as alive as the man in front of him.

“You can have a break,” Steve says finally. He sits back in his chair and sighs. “Get up and- stretch your legs or something. Have an apple.”

Tony gets up obediently and heads to the fruit bowl on Steve’s desk, which so far has been solely for eating instead of drawing. He picks up an apple and bites into it as he comes around to examine the sketchpad so far.

“Not bad,” Tony says.

Steve grunts in response. He runs a thumb along the line of Tony’s charcoal arm- even his pose seems lifeless in comparison to real life. 

“So,” Tony says. He leans against Steve’s desk. “This- learning to communicate better, thing. It’s good thinking. Better than the two of us getting mad at each other for completely avoidable reasons.”

“Hey,” Steve says, eyes on the paper and the stubborn sketch. “We mostly stopped that after the first… uh, six months.”

Tony laughs low in his throat. “True enough,” he says, and takes another bite out of his apple. It makes a satisfying crunch that gets Steve thinking about grabbing one for himself. “So how long can I stretch for?”

Steve turns to meet his eyes. “Could you actually go sit back down? I think I’m onto something.”

“Wh’ever y’ say,” Tony says, mouth full of apple. He places the half-eaten thing on Steve’s desk, which Steve eyes and tries not to wrinkle his nose.

As Tony passes him to sit back down, he touches Steve’s shoulder. It’s a firm, deliberate squeeze, picked up from how Steve does it to him. Steve’s noticed that Tony tends to mimic people when it comes to physical affection- when Rhodey hugs him, Tony returns the back-clapping, and when Pepper hugs him he mirrors her one-arm, lean-chin-on-shoulder method.

Which leaves Tony to return Steve’s shoulder-squeezes. Steve watches him walk towards the chair. Halfway there, Tony clears his throat. “That felt awkward, I won’t lie.”

It did feel forced, but Steve often gets that impression- that Tony adds it as an afterthought. “You don’t have to force yourself into behaviour that makes you uncomfortable.”

“No, that’s-” Tony sits on the chair and bends to pick up his tablet where he had rested it on the floor propped up against the chair legs. “I’m just not used to it.”

“I noticed.”

He means it mildly, but Tony’s eyes narrow slightly.

Steve backtracks: “That’s not- I mean, I get it, it can be difficult to change how you act with someone.”

Tony’s empty hand flexes open and closed. “Are you pushing yourself into- all this because you think you have to, as the team leader or-”

“No, I want to do this.”

“Right.” Tony pockets his empty hand. His fingers flicker inside the material. “Yeah, I thought so. You’re like this with everyone else, I actually wondered why you weren’t with me.”

“I thought it made you uncomfortable.”

Tony shrugs. He keeps moving like he wants to fidget and then stops himself. His eyes narrow again, but not suspiciously. “We always drift back to the touching thing, huh.”

_Yes_ , Steve thinks. Out loud, he says “We’ve been improving in other ways. I noticed that when we have team meetings you’ve been considering my point of view more, I was really impressed.”

Tony’s mouth quirks and Steve reels it over in his head only to realize how condescending that sounded.

“I just mean I, uh, appreciate-”

“I know what you mean,” Tony says. He sits back on the chair, tablet in his lap. “You still go to your therapist, right?”

“Uh, not for a few months.”

Tony makes eyes at him in a way that means _you should be going, and this is ME saying that_ , but doesn’t say anything about it. “Mine said this was a good idea. That I should reconsider what I want my relationships to be like. Friendships,” he corrects hastily. “My friendships.”

“I got what you mean.” Steve folds his arms. “Mine said something along the same vein before I left.”

“You left? I heard you threatened to throw him out a window.”

“I didn’t threaten that. I said it might do me better than the session was doing.”

“Oh, right, totally different.”

“Definitely,” Steve nods. “So, you’re still reading my files?”

“Uh.” Tony at least has the decency to look sheepish. “Yeah. Sorry. I’ll stop.”

“Thank you.” Steve tries to reel up the snippets of talk he’d had with his therapist. “I, uh, it means a lot that you respect my boundaries.”

From the look on Tony’s face, it sounded almost as stupid as Steve felt saying it.

Apparently it shows on Steve’s face as well, because Tony says “No, don’t, it’s good. We’re- growing as people or whatever.”

“Fighting is easier,” Steve says. He means physical fighting, taking down HYDRA or sea monsters, which he’d take over progressing emotionally as a human being- but it’s only when Tony replies that Steve picks up that it could also be taken as the time when Steve and Tony spent their days laying into each other on every second word.

“Fighting is easier,” Tony agrees.

 

 

 

Rewiring their friendship comes in fits and starts, and understanding Tony comes even slower. Once, Tony even asks about it- “How are you doing on the figuring me out front,” and Steve has to admit he’s still puzzled as hell, but he’s making progress.

Tony blinks rapidly at the reply. “Good enough.”

Steve doesn’t focus on it too much. He’s unlocking Tony bit by bit, but more importantly he and Tony are forging their own language, or at least building on their old one. It’s a work in progress- Steve finds himself giving slivers of his past to Tony, telling him about his school years; how his mother immigrated over from Ireland when she was pregnant with Steve; the movies he used to sneak into with Bucky; the candies he used to worship as a kid but can never find today.

When Steve goes up to his art studio days later to find every one of said candies sitting in a neat package on his desk, he has to hold back both a sigh and a smile. “JARVIS, where’s Tony?”

“Sir is currently at a meeting. He should be back in three hours.”

“Thanks, JARVIS.” Steve rubs a hand down his face and sits down in the chair in front of his desk. There’s every candy he mentioned and some more that he didn’t, some of which he never even ate when he was growing up-

His thoughts lurch sideways when he zeroes in on a packet of Valomilk. He’d have to find out where Tony got this all from.

After he finishes licking the traces of Valomilk from his fingers- because the filling never fails to get everywhere even 70 years in the future, it seems- he drafts a text to Tony. Then he re-types it twice more before settling on: _Thank you for the sweets. Good to get a taste of way back when. You should try them with me sometime._

He sends it, but doesn’t get a reply. Steve turns to his drawing desk and reaches for a sheet of paper.

When JARVIS informs him that Tony is back, Steve waits half an hour to finish the drawing before searching him out. He finds Tony in the kitchen halfway through piling fruit into a smoothie maker.

“Hey,” Tony says distractedly, slicing the green bits from strawberries.

“Hi,” Steve replies. “Sorry, are you busy?”

“Nah,” Tony says, picking up a handful of strawberries and dropping them into the smoothie maker on top of the sliced bananas and- kiwifruit, maybe, Steve thinks he catches a glimpse of berries as well- then heading to the fridge. “What’s up, Cap? Steve,” he corrects- Steve had mentioned weeks before that he’d prefer to be called Steve off the field, and Tony mostly remembers to do so.

Steve watches him pour milk on top of the rest of the sliced fruit. “I wanted to thank you for the sweets.”

“What? Oh,” Tony says, but Steve doubts he actually forgot. “Right- no problem, you already texted me. Just thought you might like them. Uh, one second.”

He fits the lid onto the smoothie maker and presses ‘blend.’ Steve stands back for several seconds as the machine purees everything to a seedy mush. Tony clicks it off and starts screwing off the lid. “Okay, go.”

“It was very thoughtful. I thought I’d try something in return.”

“What-?” Tony turns around, blender lid in hand. His eyebrows raise when he catches sight of the paper Steve is holding out to him.

“I know it’s not much,” Steve hurries to add. “I just, I didn’t have much time and I thought you might appreciate something that wasn’t- brought. Not that I don’t appreciate things you buy.”

He trails off as Tony takes a step forwards, then turns slightly to place the blender lid on the bench. He approaches almost cautiously, glancing up at Steve before taking the paper from his hands.

Steve places his now-empty hands behind his back and resists the urge to fall into parade rest. He’d done the best he could with limited time, and he thinks he could’ve smoothed out a lot of the ragged edges of Dummy and the other bots, let alone the loose drawing of Tony interacting with them-

“Huh,” Tony says. His fingers rub absently against the paper where he’s holding it. He glances up at Steve again, then back down to the paper. “It’s- thank you. It’s really-”

“I know it’s-”

“No, I like-” Tony clears his throat. “I like it,” he says, and a smile flickers across his face, fleeting and warm enough that Steve is mostly convinced. “People don’t usually,” he continues, and then stops.

Steve nods. “You’re always building us things,” he tries. “I thought you might like something I… made.”

“I do,” Tony says, almost too quiet. He clears his throat a second time. “Uh, thank you! Dummy will freak out, he’ll probably make me hang it near his charging station.”

“Well, as long as Dummy likes it. That was my main concern.”

Tony grins. Steve thinks back to his sketchbooks, the ones he’s filled with that grin, which he can never get right no matter what he tries.

 

 

  
Steve doesn’t see much of Tony the week after that- according to Pepper, he has a string of things to attend for publicity, so all the team sees of Tony is a few seconds of him on the way to collapse onto his cot in the workshop.

On the sixth night of this, Steve is settling down to sleep when there’s a knock on the door. He pushes himself up from the mattress he’d just climbed onto and makes his way to the door. “Who is it?”

“’S me.”

Steve frowns. “Tony? What’s-”

He opens the door and stops. Tony is standing in the hall with a suit on, as well as his sunglasses and cufflinks. He looks perfectly put together apart from the uncharacteristic slump in his shoulders.

“Hey,” Tony says. He doesn’t bother putting any pep into it; shifting wearily from foot to foot for a moment before he forces himself to stop. “I- hey.”

“Hi,” Steve says. “Did- something happen?”

Tony shakes his head. “No, everything’s fine. I just-” He sighs, and his shoulders tighten into angry ridges. “Fuck.”

“What is it?”

“It’s nothing. Nevermind.” Tony turns to go, but Steve catches his arm. Months ago Tony would have shaken him off, and Steve is half expecting him to now, but he keeps his grip gentle and coaxing.

Tony stills, half-turned away. Steve rubs his thumb against Tony’s elbow, a motion so minute it could almost be nonexistant.

“You can tell me,” Steve tries.

Tony huffs, but he looks at him. “Fine,” he says, but it still takes seconds to come out, halting every so often: “I’ve had. A very shit day, and I was wondering if I could. Have a hug.”

The last part comes out like it pains him, like it embarrasses him to even ask, and Steve is sure Tony would have made another run for it if Steve wasn’t still holding his arm.

“I know, it’s pathetic, I just fucking heard myself say it-”

Tony’s words gutter and die as Steve pulls him into a hug, arms closing around him and holding him fast. Steve dips his chin to rest against the back of Tony’s shoulder.

Tony stays silent, but after a moment his arms come up and mirror the action. Steve feels Tony’s chin press against his shoulder cautiously.

It’s stiff, but after around five seconds Tony starts melting into it. The arms around Steve’s back curl in tighter and Steve resists the urge to let his eyes drift shut. This is about Tony, not him.

“You okay,” Steve asks when they finally pull apart.

“Yeah.” The answer comes automatic and Tony would sound convincing if he didn’t let the exhaustion bleed into his voice at the last minute.

“No offence,” Steve says, “But you don’t look okay.”

“Ouch,” Tony mutters, trying for a laugh.

Steve smiles, but doesn’t give it to him. “Hey, if- if you don’t want to be alone, you could come in.”

Tony blinks twice. Suddenly he looks wide awake, looking over Steve’s usual attire he pulls on to sleep in. “You were about to sleep.”

“Yeah-” Steve sucks in a breath. “Bucky and I, sometimes he’d sleep on the couch and I’d have the couch cushions on the floor. Or we’d crowd into a bed in the winter. Sometimes it was- it was cold, but sometimes we’d just had a bad day and just wanted-”

He trails off. “And there’s… nothing wrong with that,” he finishes, remembering the skin and bones teenager he used to be who would square his shoulders if anyone implied Steve was weak.

Steve’s first thought is that Tony is looking at him like he’s an alien machine he has no hope of reverse-engineering. But Steve’s seen him with that exact look, and there was much less fear in it than there is here.

“We’d just sleep,” Steve assures him.

Tony stares at him some more. Then the exhaustion seems to take over, because he says, “Okay,” and follows Steve in. He stays stiff all the way through getting into bed next to him, and Steve falls asleep thinking that Tony must live with the tension in his bones.

 

 

 

 

 

When he wakes up the next morning, his theory is proven instantly wrong. Tony is slumped and lax, morning sun just barely hitting his chin. Steve looks down at him- somehow during the night Tony had migrated from the edge of the bed into Steve’s arms.

Steve takes a moment to imprint the image in his mind until it turns more bitter than sweet and he carefully extricates himself. He leaves Tony lying in his bed, at peace with the world, and Steve heads outside and closes the door.

He stands in the hallway and has to close his eyes. On the backs of his eyelids, Tony lies rumpled and relaxed, pressed against Steve’s chest.

Steve takes a bracing breath and shakes the image off. He’ll go for a run, he decides. He’ll go for a run and then- then the rest of his life.

 

 

 

 

When he returns from his run, he showers in one of the guest bathrooms. But the jitters are still shaking up his insides, and he channels all that restless energy into going into the communal kitchen and making enough breakfast for the whole team two times over, not that anyone seems to mind. Thor keeps hailing Steve over for more pancakes and Clint seems determined to eat until he either pukes or gives in. Steve really hopes he gives in, but he isn’t counting on it and got Bruce to fetch a bucket when Clint had started in on his 13th helping of waffles.

It’s nearing midday when Tony stumbles in, wearing what he went to bed in: boxers and an undershirt, from which his arc reactor glows readily through. He gives mumbled responses to the morning greetings and doesn’t look at Steve as he comes to sit at the table.

“Is Bruce stress cooking again,” he asks. He turns to Bruce. “Are you-?”

Bruce shakes his head. “It was Steve this time.”

“St-?” Tony turns to Steve, who is washing dishes in the sink. It used to confuse Tony to no end until Steve told him he likes the banality of it, and too many dirty dishes on the sink stresses him out.

Steve smiles at him and tries to make it normal. By the look Tony gives him, he probably fails. “Yeah, I’m restless this morning, thought I’d put it to good use. Oh, uh-”

He stops Tony before he can reach for the last of the pancakes. “I made you something else, one second.”

He heads for the fridge and gets out the plate he’d stacked away an hour previously, as well as a large glass full of green smoothie. The plate is stacked with a bowl of custard made from powder, some yoghurt not made from powder, and handful of assorted berries he’s seen Tony favour more than most. Steve sets the plate and glass on the table in front of him before heading to the oven, taking a tea-towel and getting out a still-warm stack of bacon and scones.

“The bacon’s a bit rubbery now,” Steve apologizes as he places this next to the other plate. He clears his throat, sets his hands on his hips. Tony is staring at him and Steve can’t figure out if it’s a good look or not.

“Right,” Steve says, feeling like more of an idiot with each passing second. “I’ll, I’m still finishing those dishes, I’ll just-”

“Hey-” Tony catches his wrist, then lets it go like it burns. “Thank you,” he says, meeting Steve’s eyes like he isn’t sure if he’s allowed to. “It’s nice of you to do this for- everyone.”

Steve swallows. “You’re welcome- I mean, it’s no problem.”

He turns back to his dishes and tries to judge if the tips of his ears have gone red. He’s guessing the answer is yes, and he hopes like hell Tony hasn’t noticed. He doesn’t look up when Tony sets his dishes on the rack.

As Tony passes him, he reaches out and squeezes Steve’s shoulder. Steve’s hands are wet, so he just nods back and hopes that this new language they’ve created can speak for him; maybe Tony can translate the look in Steve’s eyes.

 

 

 

Steve alternates between the art studio and the gym for the rest of the day, but Tony doesn’t come to seek him out. Steve tells himself he should go and check on him, see where his headspace is after last night, but he kills enough time that when he finally asks JARVIS where Tony is, JARVIS says, “Sir is in bed.”

Steve sighs. It’s his own damn fault for staying in the gym this long.

He showers and is thinking absentmindedly of how to fix the art project he’s working on when he pushes his bedroom door open. It’s his soldier reflexes that recognize there’s a person in his bed.

“Tony,” Steve says when the adrenaline wavers into surprise.

Tony has the covers pulled up around his waist. He’s wearing a tank top and hopefully- not hopefully? Steve is torn- something under his waist.

“Is this okay?”

Steve feels himself nodding.

“You sure?”

Steve nods again. This time he even manages, “Yeah. Yeah, you’re good. It’s fine.”

He flexes his hands beside him and heads for his sleep shirt, which he keeps on a shelf on his bedside table. He strips out of it and doesn’t try to see if Tony’s looking, and then pulls his sweatpants off in one foul swoop and climbs into bed.

He lies facing the ceiling. He can’t sleep like this, but he doubts he’s going to be able to sleep for a while now. “Is something wrong?”

Tony makes a low noise. “Yes and no,” he says, but doesn’t elaborate.

Steve says, “Okay,” and doesn’t press. They agreed last month that there were times to know when to press and they only got it right about half the time, but Steve is hoping he’s right that this is a no-pressing moment.

He hears it perfectly when the sheets shift. Tony moves wordlessly until his back is pressing against Steve’s side. He’s stiff as a board.

Steve’s breath feels like it’s being fed to him through a pinhole. He waits, but Tony doesn’t relax or pull away, so Steve turns onto his side and shifts forwards so his chest is pressing into Tony’s back. He puts a hesitant arm over Tony’s torso above his waist. Is this what he wants? Does he remember this morning, had he been awake, had he woken up before Steve and then fallen back asleep?

Tony doesn’t give anything away. He remains rigid, but he moves slightly against him for a moment in a way that Steve might call getting comfortable.

“Hey,” Tony says finally.

Steve’s throat feels parched. He swallows. “Yeah?”

“Did you do this with Bucky?”

“It was hard for both of us to fit in one bed,” Steve replies slowly.

“So yes,” Tony says. Then he falls silent. It doesn’t sound bitter, just- cautious.

Steve closes his eyes. If he shifted his head downward, he could press his mouth to Tony’s hair. “Not- like this.”

Tony is so quiet Steve would think he had fallen asleep- or died- if he wasn’t still so rigid. “Not like what?”

Steve is glad they aren’t facing each other. This would be a dozen times worse if he had to look Tony in the eyes.

He presses a hand to Tony’s chest. Not long passes before Tony’s own hand comes up to join it, fingers covering Steve’s. Then Tony is moving in Steve’s arms, and Steve loosens his hold to let Tony come to lie on his back.

His eyes meet Steve’s. Steve wishes he’d already said it, but he get it out anyway: “It’s never like this,” he says, and touches Tony’s cheek, at a loss of how else to describe it.

Tony leans into the touch like he’s starving for it, and it lights a fire in Steve’s belly: he lifts his other hand and leans on his elbow so he can cradle Tony’s face, run his fingers through the start of his hair.

“Not with anyone,” Steve continues, and it sounds truer than anything, lying here with Tony in the darkness of Steve’s bedroom.

Tony nods like he’s agreeing, eyebrows pulled in like it hurts. Steve wonders if anyone has touched him like this: soft, purposeful touches from someone who knew Tony as the man who crafts things into being because he thinks a friend might like them rather than the Tony the rest of the world knows _._ Surely Pepper touched him like this; touches him like this; surely Rhodey did and does.

_I’m so glad to know you,_ Steve wants to tell him. _It’s an honour to hold you like this, it’s a privilege, truly. If I had the chance to do it all over again I’d do it all the same if I got to end up here with you._

But he’s never been good at this, his tongue is clumsy and thick unless he’s delivering a battle speech, so all that comes out is, “Tony,” and Tony’s eyes come open again.

Steve says it again, his fingers perching on Tony’s cheek and chin, and hopes that Tony understands. For a moment Tony stares, but then he’s pushing himself up and leaning over, bracing his hands on the mattress at either side of Steve’s head. His right thumb shifts inward and skates along Steve’s jawline.

“Steve,” he says, soft but edged with sharp, and Steve can translate that to a hundred things, each of them flung into meaning by the terrified intimacy in Tony’s eyes.

_It’s okay_ \- Steve says this with his hands reaching up to Tony and settling against his hairline. He pulls him in gently, their mouths meeting in the middle: this is _Me too_ or _Oh god_ or both blurred together. They kiss silently, slowly, and Steve says his name into Tony’s mouth and gets his own as an answer. He expects things to progress, for hands to wander or clothes to come off, but he keeps getting distracted by Tony’s mouth and the moment continues to stretch until Steve’s mouth tingles with it, head swimming.

 

 

 

When Steve opens his eyes, sun is streaming gently through the curtains. He can’t remember falling asleep. He has vague memories of lying his head down on Tony’s chest after kissing his chin, meaning to catch his breath.

Underneath him, Tony’s chest lifts and falls. Steve props himself up on his elbow so he can look down at him, blinking when he notices Tony’s eyes are already open.

“Hi,” Steve says.

Tony grins. “Hi,” he says, and it’s a conversation in itself, the grin and the greeting both.

**Author's Note:**

> here's my [tumblr](http://theappleppielifestyle.tumblr.com/).


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